Puzzle: Pastor spends 2 days lost in airport

The Rev. Kenneth Davis left Kansas on Monday in his finest attire, bound for a gospel-music convention in Orlando.

He used a skycap's cell phone at Orlando International Airport to call his wife, Joyce, in Wichita, saying he had arrived safely and was waiting for his bags.

Then the dapper 72-year-old pastor disappeared.

Not until an alert went out Wednesday did one of the skycaps who ferried Davis to the luggage carousel realize the man was still in the airport. Michael Worsdale, an employee of Prospect Airport Services, found Davis asleep on the curb outside the airport, having remembered him from his shiny black and white spats.

"He doesn't look homeless. Supposedly security is at the airport moving all day long," said Davis' daughter, JoAnn Davis Redic of Sacramento, Calif. "How in the world could they miss him?"

Airport officials had no explanation as to how Davis could have been left alone and stranded for so long, but spokesman Rod Johnson said the airport is investigating and reviewing surveillance tapes.

AirTran Airways confirmed that Davis was a passenger, saying he did not request a wheelchair in advance but asked for one when his flight arrived in Orlando and an airport skycap provided wheelchair service.

When Orlando police and fire crews responded, they found Davis aware that he had been in the airport for days but disoriented.

"He was very thirsty, and he answered `yes' to everything," Orlando police Lt. Brian Gilliam said.

Davis was taken to Orlando Regional Medical Center, where he remained in stable condition Friday. Another daughter and son had flown into town in the time he was missing, planning to track their father down themselves if necessary.

Davis Redic said doctors told the family that Davis had suffered a stroke. It was unclear when the attack came, but it most likely played a role in his languishing at OIA for two days.

"The doctors said that he suffered a stroke in the front left of his brain and it affected his motor skills," Davis Redic said, adding that her father was unable to explain what exactly had happened to him.

Davis was coming to Orlando to take part in the Gospel Music Workshop of America, a conference he helped start. Back home, he is pastor of Immanuel Outreach Centre Church of God in Christ and plays piano.

His wife and seven children grew alarmed when Davis did not call again to tell of his trip or the conference. Although the children are scattered across the country, said they stay in touch, Davis Redic said.

They used that closeness to hold family conference calls, to report Davis missing and to plan their own trips to Orlando.

The closest child, son Kenneth Jr. in Tennessee, was in the air and ready to start the search for Davis in Orlando, when the skycap found him.

The family is still talking about how Davis managed, disoriented, at a major airport without anyone noticing, Davis Redic said.

"We're still trying to put pieces together," she said. "That lapse of time, we don't know what happened."

Davis' son and another daughter, Melinda Johnson, are at his side in Orlando.

Now, the family is dealing with the relief that Davis was found and trying to focus on getting him well enough to return home.

"We are just trying to focus on what the doctors say," Davis Redic said. "He may not remember everything right away, so it may take time before we know what happened."